LEIGHTON LEVY, STAR Writer

National discus record holder Traves Smikle will appear before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Toronto, Canada, today seeking to have a two-year ban imposed by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel in June last year overturned.

Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Dr Rachel Irving, and Professor Wayne McLaughlin, full Professor of molecular biology in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies (Mona), will be called as witnesses for the athlete.

Smikle tested positive for the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) at Jamaica's national championships to select a team to the World Championships in Athletics in 2013.

His attorney, Dr Emir Crowne, intends to ask that the ban be eliminated in its entirety, or failing that, a reprimand and no period of ineligibility.

Smikle tested positive for the substance used by athletes to lose weight or mask the use of anabolic steroids.

Smikle, however, has maintained his innocence and insists that his sample was contaminated because of poor sample collection by a doping control officer of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission. To bolster Smikle's case, Dr Crowne also intends to demonstrate the significant disparity between athletes testing positive for HCTZ in Jamaica and the rest of the world.

During a two-month period in 2013, three per cent of Jamaica's athletes tested positive for that diuretic, 60 times higher than global levels.

Smikle's initial appeal before a Jamaica Anti-Doping Tribunal in February this year failed, as, according to the panel, the athlete did not provide any new evidence to support his case.

Smikle's ban was stayed in March while a date was being finalised for him to appear before CAS.

The stay has allowed him to compete as he prepares for a spot on Jamaica's team to the World Championships in Beijing in August.